double digit midget

Ten things I love about you

Your brilliant blue eyes

Pink frosting handprints on your bald head

Your exuberant spirit

Your palpable enthusiasm

Your perpetual smile

Your belly

Your beauty, inside and out

Your productivity

Your paralyzing cuteness

You're delighted and delightful

and one for good luck

You're TEN!!

Happy Birthday, baby girl!

Weekend 3 way: meet and eat

Moki meets Jennie. Not pictured: Moki eats Jennie



Moki meets my girl.

  

Jacquie's girl meets our former neighbor Layla.  
In a word? True Love.

Fiction Friday

I can't remember the exact day my life turned to shit. Which makes sense because I don't believe there really was a precise moment, some tangible turning point when I woke up and realized that my former life was over. No, for me it was more like a hazy dream that unfolded over many months. A foggy interval of discovery. An era of learning more and more awful truths, often times via the morning edition of the Arizona Republic, each one more damning than the last. It was as though I couldn't process the current bad news until something more awful surfaced.

But how could someone really grasp in one moment, or month, or season how quickly family bonds can unravel? How many fucked-up things the man you're married to is capable of?

But now that the pieces lay where they do, that is to say in a pile of dust on the floor of the 5 bedroom 4 bathroom house that used to be my home, I have to ask myself how distant and clueless was I? Were there no signs at all? Or did I just choose to ignore them?

Could Bo's job alone really have afforded us the luxury in which we lived? Were boarding the horses and winter getaways to Switzerland really wthin a regional fleet manager's means? Even if his region was the entire southwest?

My father always told me Bo was slick. And he meant slick like the slime that coats ham slices that have been left in the fridge too long, not slick like the sunny, yellow rain coat Janine stomps through puddles in.

And dad was right, dead center on. He always was a fierce dart player, hitting the bulls eye more often than not. Why he had to go and die and leave me to face this shit storm by myself is something I plan to take up with my maker, if I ever meet her.

East Coast Love Fest

I love that blogpost of Jacquie's yesterday.

Love love love.

To see my girl Jacquie and my girl Jennie and my girl Beth all together in San Diego? In Jacquie's Westy? With my niece and nephew and Beth's kids? The tiny cockles of my gigantic heart nearly burst with love and joy.

I must tell you, though, that this is not the first Lovefest that Jennie and those West Coast lovebirds of ours have shared together. Oh, no. There was also the memorable Lovefest of 2008, New London Style:

Jacquie's kids were mere tiny tots back then. And they came to see me in the Tavern.

Unlike the recent West Coast Lovefest, Jacquie's boy was nothing but a happy clam that day.

His sister? Not so much.

See what I mean?

Okay, there, that's better.

So there we were, hanging at the Tavern . . .

. . . eating soup . . .

. . . drinking beer water . . .

. . . playing pinball . . .

Addams Family, baby

. . . and just waiting waiting waiting for the celebrity appearance.

And then there she was!

Jennie!

Our girl, in the flesh.

It was a lovely Tavern visit, and included, at one point, Jacquie's boy sitting on the floor. For reasons that have never been fully explained.

But our East Coast Love Fest didn't stop there. Ohhhhh, no. It carried on at our house, too.

With my sassy baby sister and my girl Jennie in my very own house. At the very same time.

Oh, we carried on, allright . . .

. . . into the night . . .

. . . right into a fabulously indelible memory.

westy west

Last weekend we had ourselves a d-a-y at the ballpark.


Never mind that the Padres happen to suck big fat hairy dookie balls whenever we show up.

The baseball is really quite beside the point.We love the tailgate and we love the Westy and we love the sunshine and we love Petco Park and we really love the giveaways.

This day's swag was the sporty wristbands that my girl is modeling on her ankles. What? Have you met my girl?

Anyway. This day at the ballpark was special, my friends. Not just because our tickets were way up in the sky next to the sucker military seats FREE, but because we had a special celebrity guest making an appearance!

 Jennie!

Our little friend Jennie came to play! Still glowing with pride after her legendary geezer rescuing tractor pull, here was Jennie over on the left coast! Yay!

Jennie is adorable and Jennie is game. When you ask Jennie to stand with the grouchy soldiers, who in their defense were probably mad because their free seats were even worse than ours, she hops right over and gives you a grin as wide as the day is long.

And if you ask Jennie whether or not she'd like to fondle Jerry Coleman, she says: "You know, I think I would."

And then she does

Who wouldn't? Have a little snack, Jerry.

We had so much fun, despite the dismal game and our lousy seats.
 

not our seats

And after the game, back in tailgate park, Jennie got delivered right to our Westy and we made away with her, straight to the West until we ran out of land and into a bevvy of beautiful babes.

OB! yay!

And soon we had a whole Westy full of girls and hair and feet and sand.

Sometimes they ran down to the beach to not get wet

Jennie and Beth felt like they'd known each other for years. You've gotta love that ol' blog magic. 

I was the hostess with the mostess, as usual, providing for my guests without judgment or scorn.

"Would you like a MARGARITA??!!!?? YAAAAAAY!"

"Yeah, I've got water. You suck. Whatever."

It was so fun to spend time with Jennie, she's the sweetest little fawn you ever did see.

Our photo love-fest kept getting interrupted by the shouts of rescue personnel yelling: "GIRLS!" Turns out they weren't calling to us for attention and/or assistance, but reminding our littles to get the hell out of their way.

We couldn't beat them

So we joined them*.

*Jennie got the most awesome photo of our group cartwheel, captured by my grumpy boy, our designated photographer who was so sour that not even sweet Jennie could get a smile out of him. Oh, but Jennie didn't have a camera cord so we can't see her awesome photo, YET.

In addition to being designated photographer, my grumpy boy was the designated claw machine champion, thrilling the girls left and right.

And just as the evening reached the point where it couldn't possibly get any better and we'd be wise to wrap it up before the kids turned surly, we ran into the most interesting man in the world!
 

I can really only think of one thing that would have made this time together any better:

Safe travels home, Jennie! See you next month!